A study conducted by from Boston College’s Lynch School of Education and Human Development with two partner institutions indicates that sustained, high quality, community-based early care and education, or ECE, appears to diminish the consequence of poverty into adulthood.
While previous studies examined ECE’s impact on academic outcomes in childhood through the teen years, this inquiry assessed whether more exposure to ECE is associated with adolescent and adult educational attainment and income.
The findings were released in an online issue of Child Development, a publication of the Society for Research in Child Development.
Scholars and policy makers have long asserted that early care and education in settings such as center-based care, family daycare, and informal, non-parental home care protects children from the detriments of economic disadvantage during the crucial, early years of development.
This study utilized data covering children’s lives from birth through age 26 to examine the relationship between sustained participation in high-quality, community-based ECE for children from families across the income spectrum on educational attainment at age 15, and life outcomes at age 26.
Eric Dearing of BC's Lynch School of Education and Human Development
“The results build on existing evidence on the role that ECE can play in improving long-term parity in children’s life chances,” said the Lynch School’s Eric Dearing, a study investigator and a professor of Applied Developmental & Educational Psychology.
“Our team found that more months spent in ECE was associated with mitigated disparities between those who grew up in low- versus high-income households for college graduation and their salaries.
“Given recent national and international policy efforts focused on eradicating childhood poverty, these findings are relevant for ECE as a potentially effective lever for enhancing long-term outcomes for children from low-income households.”
In addition to Dearing, authors of the study included Assistant Professor Andres S. Bustamante, and Professor Deborah Lowe Vandell of the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine; and Professor Henrik Daae Zachrisson of the University of Oslo, a visiting Fulbright professor at BC during the 2019-20 academic year.
The research was collaboratively funded through respective grants from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; the Charles Steward Mott Foundation; the American Educational Research Association via the National Science Foundation; and the European Research Council Consolidator.
Phil Gloudemans | University Communications | January 2022